Photo of the Week | 12.10.09 | Red Hong Kong

This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ takes us to Hong Kong. I first visited Hong Kong in November of 2008 and was completely taken by this unique and exciting city. 155 years of British colonial rule have obviously left a lot of British influence and I immediately felt at home in what was a place that seemed to have the feelings of both China and Britain, blended together into a unique anglo-sino melting pot.

The above photo was taken on one of the main shopping streets on Hong Kong island. I like this image for one reason really, the colour. I often look for singular colours in images in order to simplify the picture. Whilst out wandering the streets, my attention was obviously caught by the radiating neon signs that jumped out from the shop window. Having seen such a situation, I then decided to stand and wait for pedestrians to walk past in order to create an image with an interesting composition. I didn’t just want a straight shot of the window. I wanted to somehow convey the movement and dynamics of Hong Kong in the one frame.

After returning to my computer and looking closer at this image, other elements started to reveal themselves to me. The condensation on the window for example, running in streaks vertically down the glass. The way that the shapes and lines of the two people’s faces seem to fit together like a puzzle, in a way that reminds me of two continents that were once joined but have slowly separated over time. It’s always great to discover more elements in an image that you don’t realise are there when you first capture it.